Field of Invention
This invention relates to presenting information, more particularly to presenting location related information utilizing gaze detection.
Description of Prior Art
Many portable electronic devices have become ubiquitous, as an indispensible part of our daily life. Examples include smartphones, tablet computers, and potentially, smart watches or other wearable gadgets. These devices, especially smartphones, may be used to transmit to users and then present information such as advertisement prepared for consumers, notice and info for event attendees, class messages for students, or flight info for passengers. But many a time, it is not easy to acquire contact info of people involved and to figure out when to present. For instance, most ads are delivered to people indiscriminately, blindly, and without specific consideration on timing, which compromises the effectiveness of ads.
To make ads more relevant and acceptable, location-based advertising has been advocated. For instance, people visiting a store have a better chance to become a customer than people elsewhere. So a store manager may be more interested in sending ads to people present at the store than people at home. The same is true for delivery of information other than advertisements. For example, event attendees are more willing to read event material when they are in there, students are more likely to read class messages when at school, and passengers are more eager to learn flight and gate status when at the airport. Moreover, it's relatively straightforward to send location related information, since devices on the scene are the obvious target, and it may start sending messages right after users arrive at a location or come near a location. As a result, it's likely that the right info is sent to the right people in the right place at the right time. But then, the next issue may be how to present it in such a way that it is easy, simple, and convenient for a user to access. If relevant info is transmitted via email, a method used quite often nowadays, people may have to go through several steps to log in an email account, open a mail, and then take a look at it. If viewing info requires an app, people have to find the app among other apps installed at a device and then launch it. Either way, it is not convenient enough to look for info transmitted from a network or service to a device. On the other hand, if a device is on, and info content pops up by itself, it may become annoying; and if a device is in standby mode with a dark screen, it is inappropriate to lighten up its display to show any content without user consent. Thus presenting info on a device automatically has its own limitations.
Therefore, there exists a need to present location related information in a simple, easy, and convenient way.